45. Salat is the zakat of time.
Salat – Muslim ritual prayer
Zakat- Muslim ritual, yearly charity
Interpretation:
Pretty straightforward, in my opinion. Zakat is a form of sacrifice, a sacrifice of ones wealth for charity, for the sake of God.
Salat, is in the same way, a sacrifice from ones time, for the sake of God.
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Update: I thought this comment deserved a bump onto the main text.
Abu’l `Ula al-Hindi writes:
The root of zakat is purification prayer is the purification of the moments of ones life
Prayer prevents lewdity and wrong
44. Have Christianity and Islam exchanged views of each other?
One thing to keep in mind here is that the Sheykh mentions “Christianity” and “Islam” having ‘views’ of each other, rather than Christians and Muslims. I can’t wrap my head around what that means exactly, if anything.
So one way to approach this contention is to think of it in terms of views of each group towards each other. To understand this contention I think it’s best to write down how both groups viewed each other early on and then consider how they view each other today.
This article by Soumayya Ghannoushi, “Western view of Islam: A troubled history” is useful in this respect:
She writes:
To medieval Christianity, Islam was the point of intersection of all these categories, the Other par excellence: a corrupted Judaism, perverted Christianity, and wild natural paganism all at once, both the enemy within and without
…
To the reformists, Islam was synonymous with the whole deviation and moral corruption of the papacy: pride, greed, violence and lust for power and possession. But in order to demonize the new ideas of its enemies, who were rapidly growing in popularity, the Roman Catholic Church could not find a worse charge than Muhammadism.
Now that the Muslims are in a much less imposing position, it seems that the Sheykh’s contention rings true. The attributes of pride, greed, violence, and lust for power and possesion have all been recalled within Muslim hearts when thinking of Christiandom. This is especially in light of the war in Iraq and other actions taken to protect oil interests.
We now need to determine what was the view of Muslims towards Christianity. Without having any direct sources in this subject, I would throw out some suppositions. I believe the early Muslim view towards medieval Christianity would have been one of “lacking enlightenment”, “misguided due to error”, “backwards”.
This is certainly a view which has exchanged positions as well.
Feel free to share other ideas in this regard.
Continuation of my Contentions Series.
Link to Sheykh Abd al Hakim Murad’s Contentions part 1.
43. Our God is too generous to require an economy of salvation
From The History of Christian Thought by Paul Tillich
“There is an economy of salvation, the building of the different periods which finally led to the new man. This idea of the new man, or new creature, or new being, as the aim of the history of salvation, is an important contribution of these theologians.
This economy, this periodic preparation, is already present in the Old Testament. So Ignatius says: “Judaism has believed towards Christianity.” Here again we have the relationship towards fulfillment. The Christ, the new man, has appeared. He is perfect. The disruptedness of the old man is overcome and death is dissolved. This leads to Christology.”
Interpretation:
The main idea that is being put forth here is that while Islam believes Allah sent Messengers of importance and weight to guide all of mankind, the ‘economy of salvation’ of the Christians holds that none of that was relevant to salvation until Jesus (AS) came.
Someone holding to the belief of the ‘economy of salvation’ believes the difference between people born before Christ and those after Christ is, in a way, the similar to people born poor and those born wealthy in today’s economy.
Sheykh Abdal Hakim puts, as evidence against this concept, God’s generosity, in which there are no poor and no wealthy. Guidance is provided to all levels of humanity (part of it being innate), and is not temporally bound by the appearance of a certain Prophet. For individuals who were never provided explicit guidance, forgiveness still reaches them.
Continuation of my Contentions Series.
Link to Sheykh Abd al Hakim Murad’s Contentions part 1.
42. Juda-yi Ism: the absolutizing of a people.
Edom: the absolutizing of a person.
Islam: the absolutizing of God.
First it is important to realize what the Sheykh mean by “absolutizing”. Something “absolute” is defined in certain terms, it is not changing in its nature. To apply it to verb such as ‘absolutizing’, we can take ‘absolutizing’ to mean to ‘make absolute, to define certainly’.
Next we have to look at the terms used:
Juda-yi Ism: the absolutizing of a people
Juda-yi Ism – This is a play on the word of Judaism. But what is the Sheykh hinting at here by changing its spelling/organization? What the Sheykh has done here is emphasize the fact that Judaism is a religion of a people, as Juda references an ancient kingdom in which Jerusalem was its center. In this way the Sheykh is drawing a connection between Judaism as a religion of a people of the kingdom of Juda.
This part of the contention is telling us that Judaism has an emphasis on a people and an identity, and is centered around that fact.
Edom: the absolutizing of a person.
Edom – What the Sheykh swiftly does here is bring Jesus (AS) to the realm of manhood, in a two ways.
1) In the Old Testament Edom was another name for Esau (Similar sounding to Isa(AS)), the brother of Jacob.
2) According to some forms of Christianity and modern scholars, another Jacob was the brother of Jesus (AS)
So [Torah] Edom -> [Torah] Esau -> brother of [Torah] Jacob
and [New Testament] Jacob brother of -> Isa(AS) -> pronounce as Esau -> Edom 
All this fancy connection does is firmly establish that Isa (AS) was certainly a man who even had a brother.
This second part is saying that Christianity’s focus is that of a man.
Islam: the absolutizing of God
I think this one speaks for itself!
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 
Contentions 1 (46)
Continuation of my Contentions Series.
Link to Sheykh Abd al Hakim Murad’s Contentions part 1
Interpretation:
I was a bit put-off by the use of the term “In the measure that”. For me, the best way to understand it was “In as much as”, so to be more simpler version of the Contention might mean:
“Prayer is accepted by God as much as we accept the Prayer”
Certainly, from the outward fiqhi sense, if we meet our obligations the prayer should be accepted.
So how can we ‘accept the Prayer’, and what does it mean to ‘measure’ our acceptance of it? It seems that this is not ‘acceptance’ in its external meaning, but rather ‘acceptance’ similar to how one might accept their destiny: it has different levels.
I think this comes down to the spirit of Salat, where we start to come to terms with our understanding of the ritual prayer.
While Salat is a uniquely distinguishing factor for all the Muslims, each Muslim approaches prayer very differently.
For some, Salat is something generally ignored, practiced occasionally due to social circumstance. For others, it is accepted as a practiced burden. And yet for others it is a unique opportunity to have an intimate relationship with God. I am sure there are even more categories than that, but this is a good way to begin.
What the Sheykh seems to be saying is that it is helpful to consider how you view your prayer in determining the worth of that prayer in the sight of Allah, Most High.
In other words, if you view prayer as a burden to be fullfilled, well, it may just be that your reward will be handed to you with the same consideration, just fullfilling a contract of obligation and reward. On the other hand, if you treat prayer as something special, well you may find you are specially treated as well.
I can say with confidence that the Sunnipath classes on the Essentials of Hanafi Fiqh have been extremely helpful for me to develop my own relationship with Salat. Knowing many of the details of fiqh of Salat help in creating a sincere understanding on how to fullfill the obligation, and how to take it a step further from obligation to opportunity (and beyond).
The “Spirit of the Sunnah” Sunnipath class may be even better in this regard!